Last year, General Motors gave Jay Leno one of the very first Chevrolet Volts. (Like he doesn’t have enough cars already.) They were thoughtful enough to turn it over to him with a full (9.3 gallons) tank of gas  which, says Leno, he hasn’t used up yet in over ten thousand miles:

“It’s my daily driver,” he said. “It really is. I commute in it to work every day. My commute, and all my other daily running around, totals less than 35 miles.”

Chevrolet claims that the Volt can travel about 40 miles on electric power alone, under normal driving conditions, before the juice in the batteries would be depleted, after which the car’s small gasoline engine would provide added range.

“You get 40 miles free, as they say,” Mr. Leno said. “Because of the way I drive it, it almost never kicks into gasoline mode.”

Which is a good thing, because the Volt requires premium. Then again, Jay Leno can probably afford it.

6 comments

Kirk »

The fuel system is sealed, except for those few moments when there’s a nozzle inserted; it should take a whole lot longer than usual for the gas to become stale. (And if the car deems it necessary, it will burn the stuff off at its discretion.)